"Cosatu slams SA govt. AIDS policy"

[Hylton White <hjwhite1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here is a report on a statement by the Congress of South African Trade
Unions on the Mbeki govt's controversial handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
in the country. Figures from various sources suggest that between 20 and 30
percent of South Africans are HIV positive, the majority of them
impoverished black women, but the ANC has held back from medical measures
such as AZT provision to pregnant women, saying that poverty is the real
cause of the problem and that medical solutions are therefore
inappropriate. There's obviously a great deal of truth in that assertion,
as there is in Mbeki's argument that the medical science establishment
serves the profit interests of US and European pharmaceutical companies
rather than those of African patients. Instead of seeing this very real
bias in a materialist light, however-i.e. as a problem which is materially
real, not despite, but BECAUSE of its socially created character-Mbeki and
his highest health officials have come dangerously close to saying the
whole thing is merely an ideological construction: a statement which one
expects to come from the far reaches of the English department at an
American university, rather than from the department of Health and Welfare
in South Africa!

Here, at least, the trade union movement is drawing some more perceptive
links between the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and its real social
causes: not just racist ideology per se, as in Mbeki's rather muddled line
that often veers close to the weirdest forms of conspiracy theory, but the
mechanisms-like Mbeki's own neoliberal macroeconomic policy, for that
matter-that make racial oppression a continuing fact of life in South
Africa in the first place.

This article appeared on the Mail and Guardian website, September 8, 2000:

Cosatu slams govt Aids policy
THE Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called on the
government to end its "scientific speculation" about the cause of Aids and
concentrate on providing affordable treatment to people infected with
HIV.Cosatu also says that providing medication to HIV-positive pregnant
women and rape victims is "morally and medically right" - an implicit
criticism of the African National Congress government's controversial
procrastination over whether to fund such treatment.

Cosatu's position on the disease is contained in a document prepared for
its national congress on September 16, in which the union federation
expresses its concern about the government's stance on HIV/Aids. While the
tripartite alliance has come under increasing strain over economic policy,
this is the first time an alliance member has taken up the cudgels over
HIV/Aids.
Elaborating on the document, Cosatu president Willie Madisha said this
week: "We believe that indeed HIV causes Aids and that is not disputable."
Madisha said Cosatu was also concerned that the government's conservative
economic policy would seriously restrict the resources to fight the
epidemic. He said the government's macro-economic policy prevents adequate
resources being made available for education, prevention and treatment of
HIV/Aids.

"All this talk and debate about the cause of Aids prevents people from
trying to deal with the problem," Madisha said, referring to the debate on
the cause of the disease led by President Thabo Mbeki.

The resolution notes: "There is scientific evidence to support the efficacy
of anti-retroviral drugs in the control of HIV/Aids."
The resolution says providing medication to HIV-positive pregnant women
makes good economic sense in terms of costs saved on treatment of
HIV-positive children. Madisha was coy over whether Cosatu would endorse
the call by some of its affiliates to make their support of the ANC in the
forthcoming local government elections contingent on ANC candidates' not
endorsing privatisation. Madisha said Cosatu has maintained that it will
campaign for the ruling party, adding: "But the government must address
workers' concerns about privatisation, unemployment, the amendments to the
Labour Relations Act and so on, before the election."



Hylton White

Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
1126 East 59th St., Chicago IL 60637; (773) 493-3881
hjwhite1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx